Kremlin is trying to disrupt the Minsk process, forcing Kyiv to conduct direct negotiations with the Russian-backed terrorists

December 7, People's Deputy from "Fatherland" Nadia Savchenko secretly visited Minsk and met with leaders of terrorist groups "DPR" and "LPR" Olexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky. As reported by LIGA.net, citing its own sources, the meeting in Minsk was organized by Russian FSB under the mediation of the Russian Embassy in Belarus. According to a source publication, Savchenko in the presence of employees of the Russian special services discussed with Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky how to organize pressure on the official Kyiv to persuade it to direct talks with the DPR and LPR to discredit the work of the Trilateral contact group in Minsk. For the pressure on the authorities they plan to use the relatives of Ukrainian citizens who are held hostage by terrorists.

"Relatives of the hostages are being drawn into the terrible manipulations, like, there should be direct negotiations. The try to persuade that Ukrainian government is not doing nothing radical," said the representative of the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk.

As it became known, Savchenko frequently meets with the relatives of hostages, assures them that the Administration of the President of Ukraine and representatives of the contact group are doing nothing to free the Ukrainian citizens from militant captivity. At a conference in Kyiv on Sunday, December 11 devoted to the hostages in uncontrolled Donbas territories, Savchenko rudely refused to answer questions from journalists about his meeting with the leaders of terrorists. Supposedly, FSB is trying to carry out the exchange of prisoners, by presenting it as the result of direct negotiations of Savchenko with uncontrolled Donbas territories leaders. Thus, the Kremlin intends to present the conflict in the Donbas as "civil war", and not the result of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Earlier Savchenko testified Security Service of Ukraine about her trips to the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Her visits to uncontrolled Donbas territories Savchenko explained by the need to track the path of contraband, as well as to study the mood of the inhabitants of the occupied territories.

October 12, during a speech at PACE, MP from the "Fatherland", a member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE Nadia Savchenko told of her visits to the occupied territories, where she talked to civilians and militants of terrorist groups. The next day, Savchenko confirmed that visited Donbas and held talks with the militants, but pointed out that the meeting did not take place in the occupied territories, and in the "gray zone" on the line of contact. After that, the deputy head of the parliamentary fraction "Popular Front" Yuriy Bereza asked SBU to investigate the circumstances of Savchenko’s trips.